


The Sun and the Moon

by thependragonismightierthanthesword



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dark Merlin (Merlin), F/F, Good Morgana (Merlin), M/M, Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Morgana's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-20
Packaged: 2021-03-13 22:55:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 8
Words: 12,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28536255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thependragonismightierthanthesword/pseuds/thependragonismightierthanthesword
Summary: Merlin had always known there would be a reckoning for his lies; no secret between friends lasts forever, after all. He just hadn’t thought it would happen like this. In his deepest dreams, he’d imagined it as a righteous, glorious moment.  Uther gone, Arthur’s heart already shifted and Merlin finally able to come clean, the loyal servant who had shouldered weight that shouldn’t have been his to bear for years, if only to make the life of his master a little easier. Sometimes, when he played the eventual reveal in his head, he told it as a joke, in some light-hearted, quippy bit that would make it all instantly okay. In other daydreams, Arthur had always known and loved him for what he’d done, but kept quiet for the sake of their friendship, patiently waiting for Merlin to come out of the metaphorical closet. Sometimes, the confession ended with a tight embrace that would stop the world, other times with a kiss that would shatter it. This was not like his daydreams.___When Arthur catches Merlin using magic to save his life, he makes the choice to out his loyal manservant to his father, setting forth a chain of events that will change their destinies forever. Diverges from canon after S2 Ep9.
Relationships: Gwen/Morgana (Merlin), Merlin & Arthur Pendragon (Merlin), Merlin/Arthur Pendragon (Merlin)
Comments: 36
Kudos: 147





	1. Judas

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fanfic! Will try to post all chapter warnings in these notes. Chapter one features mild violence

Merlin had always known there would be a reckoning for his lies; no secret between friends lasts forever, after all. He just hadn’t thought it would happen like this. In his deepest dreams, he’d imagined it as a righteous, glorious moment. Uther gone, Arthur’s heart already shifted and Merlin finally able to come clean, the loyal servant who had shouldered weight that shouldn’t have been his to bear for years, if only to make the life of his master a little easier. Sometimes, when he played the eventual reveal in his head, he told it as a joke, in some light-hearted, quippy bit that would make it all instantly okay. In other daydreams, Arthur had always known and loved him for what he’d done, but kept quiet for the sake of their friendship, patiently waiting for Merlin to come out of the metaphorical closet. Sometimes, the confession ended with a tight embrace that would stop the world, other times with a kiss that would shatter it. This was not like his daydreams.

An arrow came whistling from the crest of the hill, the only shot from a cowardly bandit who could barely work up the nerve to step from behind the oak and release his shot. Arthur was glorious in battle, all flashing steel and flopping golden hair. Merlin could have sworn the sun smiled down on him, bringing him strength instead of sweat. That was all it took - one brief moment caught in the breathlessness of Arthur’s glow - and everything he had ever dared pray for crumbled into dust. He should have seen the bandit, the shot, the arrow before it had even neared Arthur, should have been able to inconspicuously strike the man with a falling tree branch or even shout a warning. Instead, his eyes flashed gold and his hand raised, not to make some instinctual attempt at catching the arrow midflight, but to burn it to ash. 

There are some moments in which time slows to an oozing flow and each detail becomes painfully clear in the kind of way that etches itself into your memory for all eternity. This was not one such moment. Instead, each miniscule second bled indeterminately into the next as Arthur turned white-knuckled to face his loyal servant and saw all of their time together flash by for what it was. Of course, there was no room in this particular moment for a reckoning and Arthur turned back to the foe at hand, dispatching him handily with a stab through the gut, becoming a whirl of sword and shield that no mortal man should dare stand against. One might have witnessed this from afar and thought that nothing was amiss, that one man had saved another’s life and that the look shared between them had been a mutual unspoken bond of gratefulness. But Merlin had seen the look in Arthur’s eyes, the sharp, aching glint of a deep betrayal, and he knew nothing would ever be alright again.

Time hadn’t yet slowed when they stood back to back, gasping for air in the center of a circle of corpses. It hadn’t slowed when Merlin dropped to his knees in front of the man who would become king, pleading wordlessly for the forgiveness and acceptance he had always imagined but barely dared hope for. It hadn’t slowed when Arthur dropped his chin and turned away, a bitterness creeping into every jerking edge of him as he walked away. His servant rose heavily, Atlas bearing the world in his hands, and followed him dutifully away, knowing he would rather walk to his death at the hands of Uther than betray Arthur one more time in fleeing. Time didn’t slow until they crossed the bridge into Camelot and the staccato of the horse’s drumming hooves beat to a halt. Then, the world snapped back tightly around Merlin, causing him to stumble in a moment of incoordination that under normal circumstances would have led to a miniature battle of wits.

They stood in the hallway a long time at the fork that would ordinarily send them crashing their separate ways: Arthur off to the throne room to report any news to his father and Merlin to Gaius’s chambers to confess the true story of the events that had transpired. It was Merlin who found the nerve to speak first. 

“Arthur…” he murmured, and he started to say he was sorry, hoping that one word would tell the story of the devotion and loyalty and love that had led him to the lies, but Arthur cut him off.

“Go to your quarters, now.” 

There was no friendly banter and no reassurances and no promises but no threats either and so Merlin mustered all the courage he could pull from the cold knot in his stomach. He turned away and stumbled his way back to his room in a daze, dreading with every second the goodbye he would have to make to his dear friend and mentor, Gaius, who would forever rue the day he sent Merlin off with Arthur on a trip to gather herbs that was supposed to be harmless addition to the Lady Morgana’s nightly sleeping draught.

On the other side of the castle, the side that was decorated with rich velvet banners and glistening trophies of war instead of leach tanks and dried leaves, Arthur stood shaking outside the solid doors of the throne room. Uther had told him magic was the ultimate power and that ultimate power always ultimately corrupts. Uther had told him his own mother had died because of a treacherous sorceress who only wanted to kill for the sake of it. Uther had taught him that those with magic were as snakes, carefully laced through the grass, lying in wait for you to forget your greaves or bend down to smell the flowers. Arthur was not such a young boy now that he believed everything told to him. He had seen the childish innocence of the young Druid boy, Mordred, and thought him worth saving. He had seen the sickening amount of men hung simply on suspicion of casting a small spell to warm themselves in the cold winters. He had also seen the way his father ordered Gaius, the former court sorcerer, to do acts that he knew could only be accomplished by magic but accepted the physician’s deflective explanations of some flower or another as the answers to his problems when it benefitted Uther. Arthur could sometimes be a bit thick, but he had seen all this and it was in conflict with what he had been told of magic. 

But to him, it seemed as though Merlin had confirmed every nasty suspicion he’d ever had about magic. In his heart, Arthur knew the bottomless loyalty he had been given from his clumsy servant, but in his head, the voice of Uther hissed. 

“He has ingratiated himself into the royal family, likely through magic. He swore himself yours and lied at every turn. Who knows how many threats to the Pendragons came from Merlin himself, part of some sick game to earn your trust and then shatter it into as many pieces as there are grains of sand? He deserves to hang.” 

And so, Arthur Pendragon swallowed down his bright memories of Merlin, dressing him lovingly for a tournament and scrubbing his armor for hours afterwards, and he marched into the throne room, ready to sentence his friend and his Judas to death. 

“Father. I have some news,” he said and he started at the beginning, with the simple expedition to pick herbs for Gaius and the Lady Morgana. He told his father of the bandits who ambushed them in the forest and whose armor bore no crests. And then, in a rush of breath, he told his father that he had almost died and that Merlin had saved him. 

There was a second here, the smallest of seconds, in which Arthur could have turned back. Of course, Uther was curious as to how the scrawny and uncoordinated Merlin could have saved his bear of a son, but it could have been explained away easily as a stroke of luck or even an accidental rescue as it had before. His father would have believed that Merlin had tripped over a root and blocked the fateful arrow with his shield as he fell. Arthur was not still a naive boy but he was not yet the noble king he would become, and he tasted the bitter iron of betrayal on his tongue.

“With magic.”

There was again the briefest silence. Uther himself, a king of Camelot, had noticed the immense loyalty Merlin had for his son. He had, in lonely hours, been jealous of it, for he had never inspired it in others, and could not believe that a boy willing to drink poison or throw himself in front of a knife or save his son could possess that horrid corruptor - sorcery. But if it was true, and he believed his son, the servant must hang.

“There is only one thing to be done,” Uther said stiffly. “He has broken the sacred laws of Camelot and must die for his crimes at dawn.”

It was as if all air had been banished from Arthur’s lungs. He had allowed his temper to rule him and snuffed out the very moon itself. The betrayal he tasted on his tongue had been his own.

“Father, please,” he choked out. “Have mercy. He was only trying to save me and without him I would have surely died!”

“You know the law.” Cold. Harsh. Just?

Arthur had been an actor in this scene before. An innocent was sentenced to hang and he had played his part, the steadfast son to Morgana’s womanly hysterics for justice. He wanted dreadfully to switch roles, to weep on the floor and batter himself against his father’s chest, pleading for mercy not just for Merlin but for him and his mistake. His condemnation of the closest friend he would ever know, who had wanted only to save him. Instead, he gathered himself.

“I’m not asking you to let a sorcerer waltz free through Camelot. But I shall not let a man burn on my behalf,” Arthur said as calmly as he could manage. “Let me keep him, in the dungeons, of course. But please, let me keep him alive and I won’t ask anything of you ever again.”

He could see Uther’s will bending… 

“He saved my life, it is because of his actions that I can stand before you now, asking for just this one thing. Please.”

It could have been because of fate, because Merlin still had that pesky destiny to fulfill. It could have been because Arthur reminded Uther of himself, both brave and terrified, hopeful and daring not to hope for anything. It could have been because only weeks ago, that servant boy had saved his life, talking Arthur down from patricide. It could have been anything or nothing, just a passing whim of mercy, but whatever it was, Uther nodded. 

“I am not without a heart, Arthur. I will spare him,” Uther proclaimed. “But know this, he will never step foot from those cells an unbound man or I will have him killed on sight. He is your responsibility now.”

And with that, Uther waved his son lazily from the room, suddenly exhausted by the whole affair.


	2. Kindling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin is arrested and Arthur must tell Morgana what he's done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter chapter because tomorrow's my birthday! This chapter has some really minor violence. I'll try to update once or twice a week.

Merlin had expected Gaius to be both furious and heartbroken when slipped into their chambers, set his pack down, and revealed the unfortunate news as gently as he could. He was right, of course. There was an awful quiet and the initial seething “How could you?” and then Gaius stopped cold, drew in a shuddering breath, and collapsed into the rickety chair Merlin pulled out for him when he saw Gaius’s knees start to go. They were a tableau of tragedy: the older man slumped in the chair, the younger standing behind, trying to communicate the depth of his wordless repentance through the fingers curled around the elder’s shoulder. 

Merlin broke the frozen silence.

“Maybe he won’t tell Uther.”

“Maybe he won’t,” Gaius said. But he knew better, and he knew they had only minutes left. “Merlin, you are like a son to me. Don’t...don’t forget that.”

Merlin’s throat was too swollen to choke out a response and did the only thing he could and hugged him fiercely. “Watch out for Arthur, will you? I can’t keep his royal arse safe when I’m...when I’m...gone.” 

Gaius nodded, of course he would. There was a distant rumble, a rolling thunder they both recognized as the synchronized march of guards and Merlin straightened. “Tell Gwen and Morgana that I’m sorry and that I love them. And tomorrow. Don’t watch. This will be the last thing I do alone.”

There was no time for either to say anything else before the door floor open and the hurricane started.

“There he is! The sorcerer!” shouted one of the guards and they rushed Merlin, weapons drawn and wary. 

“I won’t hurt you,” Merlin said as calmly as he could. “I surrender.”

He knelt slowly onto the hard stone floor, bowing his head and raising his hands above it. Immediate, wrenching pain in the joints of his shoulders as he was yanked to his feet. Sound dulled as blood rushed in his ears. He thought he heard Gaius let out a cry and then he was gone, dragged roughly from his home. Down they went, down the winding stairs, down past holding cells, down to the dungeon. And then, without a word on what was to happen to him, they hurled Merlin onto the floor, fastened cuffs around his wrists and went, eager to get away from the sorcerer. One guard, a stocky man in his mid thirties with sad green eyes turned and spit at the prisoner, muttering under his breath as he left. 

Then it was over and Merlin took the first breath and then the second and the third after that. He wanted to stand tall and firm but he shook like a leaf, blowing this way and that in the gale. He gave his chains a few small tugs to see how much he could move and then he sat on the ground and he wept. He caught a few of his tears on his wrist and thought that no matter how much cried, he would still go up like bone-dry kindling in the fire.

In the Lady Morgana’s chambers, Arthur stood terrified. She was terrifying, really, when she was angry, and now she enraged. If he wasn’t trying his best not to meet her eyes, he might have noticed that for a second, they flashed a molten gold and the furniture in her room seemed to shake from within. 

“How could you?” she asked, spitting out each word as sharp as she could. “That boy has done nothing but serve you and put up with you and apparently, save you. And you’ve killed him, you’ve killed him!” 

“No, I haven’t, I-” he tried to say, shaking his head aggressively, but Morgana wouldn’t hear a word of it.

“You’re just like Uther, a self-centered, arrogant prick! Merlin is locked up, alone and terrified, and you’re here trying to explain to me why it’s totally and completely acceptable for you to sentence one of our friends to burn at the stake?”

“Morgana, I have not-”

“You have,” she said, abruptly icy cold. “You have, and you will forever face the consequences for it.”

And suddenly, she was storming out of the room, her skirts fluttering behind her. 

“Morgana!” he shouted. “Where are you going?”

Without turning back, she responded instantly. “To visit Merlin.”

Exasperated, Arthur strode after her, grabbed her by the wrist and spun her around. “Morgana, listen to me! I have not sentenced him to death, he’s not going to die!” 

A look of instant confusion on her perfect, porcelain face. How could he not burn after Arthur spoke witness to Uther?

“And why, Arthur, is he not going to die?”

“Well, um, because he’s just, uh, sentenced-to-jail-for-life,” he said, realizing by the end of the sentence that imprisoned for life was not much better than dead.

“You...you giant arsehole!” she hissed and before he could defend himself, she slapped him and strode away, leaving Arthur to stand dumbstruck in the hall. 

Of course, Morgana wasn’t an unconflicted, pure-hearted defender of Merlin’s honor. She too felt betrayed. He’d had so many chances to come clean, to share their burden of magic in companionship. They could have had a beautiful thing together and he’d chosen to keep secrets, even from her. But she cared for him, in fact, there had been a few weeks she’d thought he was sweet on her and she didn’t feel unflattered or entirely uninterested. She also knew what it was like to be thrown in the dungeon, although she’d known then that it wasn’t a permanent situation and enjoyed some privilege even in jail as the king’s ward.

A thought occurred to her and she stopped again, somehow angrier. Arthur had been following her, at a safe distance, and she glared him down. 

“Arthur Pendragon. You did tell the poor boy he hasn’t been sentenced to death.”

He didn’t answer but his cheeks deepened to a Camelot red.

Morgana wanted only to be there for Merlin, and, she added to her mental list, murder Arthur.


	3. Coals

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morgana and Merlin share secrets and contemplate the truth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow! I just wanted to say thank you for all the interest in this fic so far, it really makes me excited to keep writing! Huge thanks to my in-real-life friend, K, for the beta-reading so far. No content warnings for this chapter.

Footsteps, instantly followed by a thick wash of fear. Had Uther sent someone to torture him, to flush out any co-conspirators? Merlin knew he could bear it, but still he kept his eyes shut, muttering a small prayer that whoever it was wasn’t coming for him. 

A second set of footsteps, heavier. And then, a more welcome sound - the clear tones of Lady Morgana’s voice.

“Merlin! Are you okay?”

He supposed he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to answer the question.

“Morgana, I’m so sorry...I should have..I should have told you. We could’ve-” he started, and then he saw the source of the second set of footsteps. Arthur Pendragon, in the flesh, standing almost ten feet back from the cell as if he was scared. Scared of Merlin… 

“It’s alright, Merlin, of course it’s alright,” Morgana said, the hint of a tear welling in her pale eyes. When she looked at him, his high, knife-sharp cheekbones and pale skin, the tendrils of dark hair drifting over his forehead, she could easily imagine herself in his place. She stretched her delicate wrist through the bars. Even as they both strained to meet each other, she could only brush his fingertips, offering the meagerest of comfort as they shared the bond they could not speak.

Arthur cleared his throat. 

Merlin couldn’t bring himself to meet his master’s eyes, instead raised his eyes only to Arthur’s chin, with its jutting, masculine shape and its faint blond five o’clock shadow. He tried to count the tiny hairs on it as he waited what felt like forever for Arthur to finally speak. He only reached seven before he was too frazzled to continue.

Arthur still hadn’t spoken, just continued to clear his throat in what could have been the longest “harumph” of the century. Merlin counted to seven again, still not daring to look above that shapely crag and then Morgana was elbowing Arthur.

“Arthur. You have something to say.”

“Yes, um. Merlin. Despite your, ahem, treachery, you saved my life and you will be rewarded. With a royal pardon,” Arthur said. He was using his pompous “I am the prince of this kingdom and you will respect me,” voice but was too unsure of himself to reach his normal imperious heights. 

“A...a pardon?” Merlin asked. He hadn’t dared hope…

“A pardon. You will not be executed tomorrow,” Arthur said, and he could hear Merlin almost imperceptibly let out the breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. Morgana glared at him again. “It isn’t a full pardon, Merlin. You’ll still...be-imprisoned-for-life.”

Silence.

“My father can’t just allow a sorcerer to freely wander Camelot. The danger you pose to innocents...it’s safer for everyone if you stay here.” There was a wheedling, desperate tone to Arthur’s voice. He was still furious and raw and wounded and he needed to be understood, needed Merlin to understand him and absolve him.

The silence stretched. 

“Merlin. Merlin. Look at me!” Arthur commanded.

His humble servant obeyed. 

“Merlin. Say something.”

Merlin coughed lightly and a ghost of his familiar smirk crept across his face. “Something.”

Again, silence. And suddenly the three of them were laughing, uncontrollably, manically, breathlessly. 

In their best days, they, and Gwen, formed a family to each other, a family that gave unconditional love and care, even when one family member threw a boot and a bucket and a few potatoes at the other, even when one family member was melancholic, hadn’t slept more than a few hours and was hurling insults at anyone who looked at her wrong and even, apparently, when one family member disappeared for hours at a time and kept very, very important secrets for months. They were a family and somehow, they would get through this. 

When the laughter sputtered down from bonfire to coals, they hunched, trying to find the warmth in each others’ company, even if the stone cellar around them was cold. 

“Arthur?” Merlin said gently, sharing a glance with Morgana. “It’s kind of chilly down here. Could you get me a blanket?”

Arthur roared in a playful indignation. “Is my servant? Ordering me around?”

“Your servant? I’d say a lifetime prison sentence means I’m fired,” Merlin joked. 

“Ha! You lazy clotpole. I don’t care if you get both your arms chopped off, you’ll still be shining my armor and polishing my boots.” 

Before Merlin could quip back, Arthur was bounding up the stairs and Merlin was left alone with Morgana, who stepped closer so they could whisper in hushed secrecy. 

“Morgana, I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you so many times. I hated watching you suffer alone,” Merlin said.

As much as a small part of Morgana wanted to nurse spite, most of her soul was humming with the joy of not being completely and utterly alone in the castle. “I understand. Really, I do. You’re just a servant, you had to have been so scared.” 

Merlin nodded. He had been. If he was being truthful, he still was. He knew he wasn’t entirely forgiven and he certainly wasn’t out of the woods. 

“I did something terrible, Morgana,” he admitted, already feeling that familiar self hatred come creeping back. 

She tried to joke. “Magic?”

“No. Well, okay, yes, that too. But worse than that.” He took a deep breath. “Morgause was telling the truth. Uther...he chose to sacrifice Arthur’s mother. He gave Ygraine’s life so that Arthur could live. And I lied, Morgana, I lied and I told Arthur that it was all a trick and that magic was evil.”

She took a second to remember. That night, Arthur had come to her chambers and drunkenly sobbed to her and Gwen. He felt so, so guilty. He’d almost killed his father and he might’ve been the cause of his mother’s death. And...if Morgause had been telling the truth, Arthur had helped his father execute a genocide, and for what? Nothing. That night, she too could’ve told Arthur about her powers. She could’ve told them that yes, they caused her nightmares, but those nightmares gave her foresight to save the people she loved. But she didn’t, and so how could she blame Merlin?

“You did what seemed right in the moment. Maybe that’s all we can do…” she said, as comfortingly as she could manage. When she looked up, a shadow had crossed the pale blue sky of Merlin’s eyes, a darkness she didn’t recognize.

“If I wouldn’t have stopped him, if I wouldn’t have lied...Uther would be dead. He’d be dead, and we’d be free.” 

Morgana didn’t know how to respond. He was right. She wouldn’t need to worry every morning that she’d cast some spell in her sleep that would reveal her as a sorceress. Merlin wouldn’t be sentenced to rot away in a 10x10 square cell. There would never be another witch-burning. Her window overlooked the courtyard, and each time the pyre was lit, the smell of burnt flesh would seep into her chambers for days. On those days, it didn’t matter where in the castle she hid, she could always hear the screams, first as they died, and then again in her dreams. 

“He deserves to die,” Merlin said. “Uther deserves to die.” 

Before she could answer, they heard footsteps. Arthur had returned. 

“Stay strong, Merlin. We’ll find a way to get you out of here,” she said, thinking to leave and give her brother and his servant time alone. 

“Morgana, wait,” Merlin whispered, looking up quickly to make sure Arthur wasn’t close enough to hear. “Gaius knows a little magic, too. There’s a book of spells hidden in my room. Ask him for it. Learn to protect yourself.”

She nodded, grateful, tucked a perfect curl behind her ear and brushed gracefully up the stairs.


	4. Atone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An intruder hellbent on revenge and a prince hellbent on getting his apology.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Graphic depictions of violence in this chapter. This one took me a long time to write, sorry! I hope you like it. Thank you so much to K, for helping me out of the writer's hole of what to do about Arthur

The footsteps didn’t belong to Arthur.

They belonged to a stocky man, no longer dressed in his royal guard uniform, slipping in through the shadows.

How Morgana had missed him, she would never know, and she would regret it for weeks when she saw the sickly blue marks creeping like ivy up over the edge of Merlin’s neckerchief and onto the hollows of his cheeks.

The man moved like a vengeful ghost into the chamber, relishing the shocked look on the sorcerer’s face when he realized it wasn’t his puppy dog prince come to save him. No. He wasn’t here to save the boy. He was here to shatter him like glass.

“Do you remember me, boy?” he snarled at the sorcerer who was still on the floor, crumpled and looking up at him.

“No,” Merlin answered. 

“Wrong answer,” the man said, pulling a key from the pocket of his jacket and beginning to unlock the cell door. “Look again.”

“Well, yes, from earlier today. You spat at me,” Merlin said. His palms had started to sweat and a panic was setting in as the man stepped into the cell. 

“Think. Harder.”

With a sudden violence, the man reached down, stubby fingers twisting around Merlin’s neckerchief and yanking him to his feet. The man was broad shouldered yet short and Merlin had half a foot of height on him, but the man’s ironclad grip on Merlin kept them at eye level, forcing Merlin to hunch.

“I’m sorry, I don’t remember you…” Merlin whispered up into the man’s angry green eyes, frantically trying to figure out where he could have met and offended him.

Without warning, the man’s knee bucked between Merlin’s thighs and an animal shriek escaped from somewhere inside him as his vision went white. There were only three things left: the blinding pain, the wheezing tightness of the man’s grip on his neckerchief, and the low growl of his voice in Merlin’s ear.

“Of course you don’t remember me. Too busy whoring yourself out to the Pendragon...You think we don’t see the way you look at him, follow him, dote on his every word? He’s the only reason you aren’t dead like the rest. You disgust me.”

The agony was subsiding slowly and Merlin scrambled to gather his wits. Before could, he heard a distant crunch and then the second wave of pain hit and he realized the man had smashed his fist into Merlin’s nose. Merlin’s head lolled to the side and it was all he could do to stand. He started to mutter, thinking only a spell could save him now. The man clasped his palm tightly over Merlin’s mouth.

“If you even think of uttering a single word of your black magic, I will tell the king you tried to kill me and you will burn at the stake. I will have only defended myself against an evil sorcerer,” the man hissed. Merlin nodded weakly.

“You may not recall me now, but you will. My name is Andred Sevan, and you will remember.”

He was right. Merlin would never forget it.

Andred pushed Merlin back to the wall of the cell, pulling the chains at Merlin’s wrists taut and pinning him there by the throat. He wanted to play a new game. He punched Merlin in the ribs, knocking the wind out of his lungs, and began to speak, punctuating each sentence with another blow.

“Serving Camelot is a family occupation.”

A kick to the shins.

“ _Dying_ for Camelot is a family occupation.”

A cupped hand slap to the ear.

“My father, he died in the water plagues - magic.”

An uppercut to the stomach. Merlin was groaning now, a horrible rattle pressed out through his tight windpipe.

“My brother, he died in the griffin attack - magic.”

A jab to the chest. 

“And my son...well, my son was burned.”

Andred finally stopped raining brutality down on the barely conscious servant, pulling back to gaze into Merlin’s glazed over eyes.

“He was falsely accused of magic and burnt, without a trial... _in service of country and king_ . And you...you sneak around this castle like a plague-ridden rat, daring to perform magic in front of the prince himself! You face no consequences for your corruption when my son was killed for _nothing._ ”

He looked at Merlin’s face, searching for something he didn’t find.

When he spoke again, it was with the conviction and fervor of a religious fanatic. “If Uther won’t kill you, I’ll do it myself. For Camelot.”

If Merlin was going to use magic, this was his last chance, he thought, as Andred drew a long-bladed dagger from a sheath at his waist, but his head was just too fuzzy with pain to find any of the words. Andred raised the dagger high and began to chant, invoking some old God of Justice as he continued to press Merlin into the wall.

Maybe this was it. Merlin squeezed his eyes shut and wished for peace. 

“The sun rises quickly on the darkest of dawns!” Andred intoned, the final line of prayer.

Again, he was right. The sun rises quickly on the darkest of dawns, and Arthur was the sun, charging into the cell and barreling straight into Andred, a mere second before he could plunge the dagger down into Merlin’s heaving chest. Arthur was a ball of feral fury, tearing the dagger out of Andred’s hands and hurling it, and him, onto the stone floor. 

Free of Andred’s grasp, Merlin slumped to the ground, the cell becoming a fuzzy dark blue at all its edges. The world was made only of blurry forms, but Merlin saw the Arthur-shaped blob dragging the smaller shape out of the cell.

The sharp stabbing of the air in, the fiery ache of the air out; Merlin could only count time in breaths, so he had no real idea how long Arthur was gone. Merlin felt him when he returned though, felt Arthur’s fingers tangle themselves gently his hair and recoil when he felt the blood.

“Merlin? Merlin, can you hear me?”

Merlin tried to speak, but could only whimper, a heart-achingly hopeless sound. 

Arthur had never seen him like this. To him, Merlin always looked a coltish youth. Boyish and spry with life bursting from every limb, skin smooth and ivory, stretched delicately over a noble, Fae-like bone structure. Whenever Merlin moved, Arthur’s gaze had lingered, drawing in every detail in case he ever woke up knowing how to paint and could do justice to Merlin’s features. 

In his arms, though, was a broken thing. Merlin’s nose was somewhat askew and the breaking of it had released a flow of scarlet that stained his pale skin and dripped back into his dark hair when he fell. Wherever Arthur touched, his fingertips came back damp, with sweat or with blood. He untied the familiar blue neckerchief and pulled it off gingerly, revealing angry chafing marks that had started to bruise around the edges encircling Merlin’s neck. He wanted to remove Merlin’s tunic too, to catalogue the injuries that lay waiting out of sight, but he couldn’t think of a way to do it that wouldn’t cause his friend more pain.

“You need to open your eyes, Merlin,” Arthur said. “You can’t pass out on me. You still need to apologize.”

Merlin coughed, sparking a burning in his throat, but he managed to choke out a word. “Apologize?”

“Yes, _Mer_ lin. Apologize. It’s the right thing to do when one lies to a mate.” 

Arthur had this particular way of speaking, Merlin knew, where one couldn’t be sure if he was joking or just supremely arrogant, but whichever it was, it infuriated Merlin. Now wasn’t the time for joking - he’d almost died! And the arrogance, well…

“Leave,” Merlin commanded, finding the strength to sit up, hoist himself from Arthur’s lap, and prop himself against the wall. 

“What? Leave? I’m not going to leave, Merlin! You almost died!” Arthur sputtered.

“That’s right, Arthur,” Merlin said, more venomous than Arthur had ever heard him. “I almost died because of you.”

“Because of _me?_ I saved you!”

“You saved me from something _you_ caused! I’m here because of you!”

“No, Merlin. You’re because you lied to your crown prince, God knows how many times. You lied to _me,”_ Arthur pleaded, needing Merlin to understand. “I _want_ to forgive you.”

“For every lie I’ve told you, I’ve atoned,” Merlin said, his tone noble and his voice growing in strength. “By saving your life, time and time again, I’ve atoned. I will not apologize and I will not be forgiven.”

For possibly the first time in his charmed life, Arthur was speechless. 

He wanted to know where it went wrong, where he went wrong. He’d had such hopes for this day. In the morning, the sky had been cloudless and the air warm. A sunbeam had shone into his chambers, and as his servant readied Arthur for the day, Merlin had joked that he wanted to stretch in that light like a cat. Arthur had reached out to ruffle his head, saying “You’d make a cute cat, _Mer_ lin,” and taking pride in the way he brought a rosy blush to those artful cheeks. 

It had been a peaceful day. No visiting princess, no impending magical curses, no descending foreign armies. And so, when Merlin had asked permission to pick herbs for Gaius, Arthur had happily volunteered to tag along, claiming it was because Merlin needed protecting from wild animals. He hadn’t told Merlin that he’d packed a picnic for them, flirting some bread and cheese from a kitchen maid. He’d felt like a foolish romantic, but he even nicked a rose from a bouquet in Morgana’s room. He thought they might finish their herb-picking early and then steal some time to be with each other, wrestling in the grass, telling stupid little secrets, and maybe even running their hands through each others’ hair. He thought, maybe, it could be a date. Their first.

Instead, the bandits, the throne room mistake, the attack. And the more Arthur thought about the events of the day, the more he realized with unpleasant certainty that Merlin was not, indeed, the one who needed to apologize. It was him. The penalty for magic in Camelot was death, and Arthur had so angrily chosen to out his closest friend. Had he really thought Merlin’s magic made him dangerous enough he deserved to die? Or was he just too caught up in the bitterness of being left out of something so integral to Merlin’s being that he’d turned to revenge?

The shame knocked Arthur to his knees and he found himself begging mercy at the altar of Merlin. He took the injured boy’s hands into his own, softly pressed his head into Merlin’s chest and did something he’d never done in the presence of another man. 

He wept.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur murmured. “I’m so sorry.”

And that’s where they stayed, nestled together in a pas de deux of regret, repentance, and resilience.


	5. Fester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin and Arthur struggle to find their rhythm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No major content warnings in this chapter, although Merlin is still suffering from the events of last chapter.

They settled into an uneasy kind of rhythm. During the day, Arthur was still a prince, hurtling about the castle for training and court and dinners and diplomatic matters. Uther had assigned him a new manservant, an eager boy named George who was meticulous in his duties but incredibly overbearing and seemed to be almost omnipresent, always lurking in the shadows whenever Arthur even  _ thought  _ about wanting something. 

Merlin’s hours were calmer. He slept as well as he could, dozing away waking hours that brought him only pain. When he couldn’t drift away into that blissful sleep, he conjured himself tiny illusions, letting knights and princesses dance and spar and play out the fairytales his mother had told him in his youth. It has only been a week, but it felt as if he had grown ancient. There is a persistent, throbbing ache in his ribs, his nose isn’t healing properly and hurts him when he breathes through it. Worst of all, though, is the agony of Arthur.

In the dark, Arthur steals down to be with him. He brings Merlin food that he has squirreled away from his own dinner, scraps fit for a king. The first night, he had jokingly brought a pair of his boots, tossed them at Merlin and told him to shine. Merlin obeyed his order, but with none of his usual snark, and Arthur could see in his stiff movements that Merlin was angry or in pain or both and too proud to admit it, and he never brings chores down again. 

Though they banter and laugh and Arthur tells Merlin about the woes of his new servant boy and Merlin shares his dream where Arthur attended court in only his underwear, they both have a growing sense that something is wrong. Their rhythm is not the same. Merlin calls Arthur a clotpole and Arthur can’t have him sent to the stocks because he is already in prison. Arthur asks Merlin where’s he been all day, the pub? And there is only uncomfortable silence because of course Merlin hasn’t been at the pub, he’s been sitting here, rotting here. There is a new desperation in their late night chats, both of them straining to hold onto the nostalgia of their past ease and chemistry. The power differential between them had once been  _ fun, _ because Merlin ignored it and flaunted his defiance every chance he had, turning it into a game to find how far he could push and how much Arthur liked to be pushed. Now, the difference between them is just too much. Arthur is the sun, a glowing prince with worlds revolving around him and Merlin is the moon, a ghost, a pale reflection of Arthur’s brightness and heat.

Merlin is the moon, and he has started to wane. As a physician’s assistant, he knows how to recognize a wound that isn’t healing properly. The bond between him and Arthur was broken, and though the skin over it has begun to scab, Merlin knows. The bone isn’t set properly and it has begun to fester. Infection is eating away at it from the inside even as the outside heals. Gaius could tell you, a mending like that is a death sentence. You die from your injuries, or you must rebreak the bone and begin the dangerous healing process again. 

On the first night of the second week of Merlin’s captivity, Arthur asked for a story.

“Tell me one, Merlin. You must know a story, any story,” Arthur urged.

“Why do you want a story?” 

“Because. No one’s ever told me a story before.”

“Okay, fine. Let me think.”

For a moment, there is a silence as Merlin runs through the stories in his head. Tristan and Isolde? The Wild Hunt?

“Anytime,  _ Mer _ lin.”

And so Merlin sighs, and with a small smile he begins to tell the story of magic and myth that he knows best.

“Once upon a time, there was a young prince. He was strong and charming and curious. Everybody loved him.”

“Is this story about me?” Arthur asked innocently.

“The prince,” Merlin said. “Was also a huge  _ prat.  _ He’d grown up the only son and the favorite son, given whatever he wanted to eat and allowed to run about the castle whenever he felt like it. He stole pastries from the cook, left messes everywhere he went and sometimes, he liked to beat up servants to make his friends laugh. Not a very nice guy, this prince.”

“Oh, so it’s not about me then. Carry on.”

Merlin glared. “Shh. Or I won’t finish the story.”

Arthur gestured for him to carry on. 

“This prince had a rather large destiny to live up to. Some said he was the once and future king who would rule Camelot forever and unite the world in a time of peace. They believed in him. But of course, the prince was still just a young boy who liked to throw things at peasants who couldn’t say no. 

The funny thing about destinies is that almost everyone has one, you know? In a tiny village just outside the borders of Camelot, there lived another boy. He grew up poor but happy, alone in a hut with his mother. They both had kind hearts and big smiles and dark hair.”

“Is this supposed to be you, Merlin?”

Merlin pointedly ignored the interruption and continued.

“The day he learned he had magic was both the best day and the worst day of his life. It was the best day because it was magic that let him save his best friend from certain death. It was the worst day because he knew he couldn’t stay in his village anymore and that he would be forever hunted for who he was. Even though his mother was aware that Camelot was a dangerous place for magic users, she sent him, because there she had an old friend who would certainly know how to help.”

Here, Merlin pauses. He murmurs a word Arthur doesn’t understand under his breath and his eyes flash gold and then two figures of sparks and fire spring to life on his palm.

“This is where their destinies intersect.”

A blue line of fire connects the two figures and as Merlin speaks, they act out his story.

“On his first day in the city, the young sorcerer felt so full of life and hope. It was a vivid, bustling hub of energy compared to his quiet village and it set him at ease as he walked about, trying to find the home of his mentor. He got a little lost, and it was then that he met the prince, who was terrorizing a poor boy. The sorcerer didn’t know the man throwing daggers was a prince but it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he did. He knew the right thing to do and so he stopped it. 

It might’ve been fine if he hadn’t thrown a punch at the prince, but he had, and so the sorcerer was sent to jail, a cell a little bigger and warmer than this one, and then the stocks. Their second confrontation was even more dramatic. This time the prince was needling the sorcerer, baiting him into a fight, and the sorcerer gave it to him. It was a fantastic battle, one that ranged the entire market and would be sung about by bards for years to come. The prince was talented with his mace, but the sorcerer was lucky. So lucky, one might’ve thought he was using magic...a tangle of mace here, a taut rope on the ground there, but in the last moment, he was distracted and the prince beat him.”

“You used  _ magic?  _ In front of everybody? You complete idiot!” Arthur interjected.

“You didn’t notice, did you?” Merlin said, and he was still proud of this fact.

“I can never tell if you’re incredibly brave or incredibly stupid or both.”

“...both.”

And then, though it was agony for Merlin to do so, they laughed, remembering the events of the day they met.

“I asked you if you’d been practicing your knee-walking,” Arthur said, still giggling.

“That you did...Still don’t know if you were flirting with me…”

“I wasn’t!”

“Of course not, Sire.”

“Is the story over? You didn’t say ‘The End’”

“No. There’s still a little bit left to go,” Merlin said. He took a breath and began to speak again, the figures in his palm flickering with his words. “What the young sorcerer didn’t know was that it was his destiny to protect that arrogant, blustering, positively  _ prattish  _ prince and that meant saving him from any number of evil plots, all while hiding who he truly was. 

In fact, one such plot happened only days after the courtyard confrontation. A witch, who hated the king, disguised herself as a beautiful and talented singer. She infiltrated the palace easily. She attended a court dinner, which the sorcerer was only able to attend as a serving boy, and when she began to sing, cobwebs crept over everything and people began to age and wither away. The sorcerer saw this, saw that he was unaffected and knew that he had to help. He looked up and noticed that the witch was standing under a chandelier. He muttered a word of power, his eyes flashed gold, and the chandelier fell on her, shattering her grasp on the spell.

Everyone began to wake up, brushing off cobwebs and trying to figure out what had happened. Why was the chandelier on the ground? Why was a woman under it? And before anyone could do anything, she had a knife and she was hurling it not at the king, but at his son. Before the sorcerer even knew what he was doing, he was moving, faster than he ever had before. He tackled the prince, saving him from certain death. And he was rewarded for it by being forced to clean the prince’s armor and shine his boots and muck out his stables from then until eternity. 

The End.”

Arthur had always assumed himself the hero of his own story, of every story really. He hadn’t stopped to wonder, even after Merlin’s magic was revealed to him, how those stories changed. He received glory and praise and rewards at every turn, but how many of his most recent vanquished foes had actually been killed by Merlin? How many times had he been helped or saved? If their relationship was a puzzle, Arthur had all the pieces, he just didn’t know how they fit together. Those nights Merlin disappeared to the pub but was never hungover the next morning? All the times Merlin scurried off in battle, seemingly in cowardice? What was he doing then? Arthur had so many questions he wanted to ask, but it was getting late and Merlin had started to wilt. 

“Thank you for the story,” Arthur said, his legs tingling as he slowly began to get up. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Goodnight, Arthur,” Merlin replied, exhausted from the effort of storytelling and already starting to sink into sleep.

“Merlin?”

“Yeah?”

“The prince. Was he handsome?”

“Goodnight, Arthur.”

With one last look back at the sorcerer, the prince disappeared into the night, and the sorcerer thought, “Maybe we won’t have to rebreak this bone after all. Maybe it’ll heal up alright on its own.”

He was wrong.


	6. Fade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sorcerer starts to slip away and the prince must make a final choice between sorrow and redemption.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: references to death with a few subtle suicide references. 
> 
> This chapter is the end to what I'm calling Part One of The Sun and the Moon. Next chapter will begin a new era of The Sun and the Moon!
> 
> Thank you so much to everyone who has read this far and left comments or kudos, it's really heartening, especially as this is the first piece of writing I've really put on the internet!

“....and so, the sorcerer came up with a brilliant idea. If the king would not believe the evidence he had, he would fabricate some. Anything to save the man who had become his father figure. Late at night, he snuck into the Witchfinder’s chambers. There was a bracelet, just like the one that had been used to frame the physician, sitting in a cabin, so he cast a small spell of multiplication on it. Then, as he turned to leave the room, he couldn’t help himself. He cast one more spell.”

“I think I know where this is going...” Arthur said, already starting to chuckle.

“As the sorcerer suspected, the king did not believe him based solely on the potions and the testimony of the market vendor, so they went, almost the entire court, to search the Witchfinder’s chambers. They found the bracelets, and were horrified. Then, an awful look appeared on the Witchfinder’s face, and a frog came hopping out of his throat. The sorcerer couldn’t hold back a laugh. 

But in a quick moment, the situation turned violent and the Witchfinder snatched the king’s ward, holding his weapon against her throat. The sorcerer loved the king’s ward and he wanted to protect her, so he took the risk and muttered a spell, hoping no one was paying attention to him in the chaos. The hilt of the witchfinder’s knife grew hot and the smell of burnt flesh filled the room. He released the king’s ward and staggered back, back, back and through the window, crashing to the ground far below.”

“The end?” Arthur asked drowsily.

“No. Not yet. There’s a bit more left,” Merlin said, for though the story of the Witchfinder was done, there was something more he wanted Arthur to hear. “After the court settled down and the body was removed from the courtyard, the king visited the physician. He felt ashamed when he saw him, saw how he had aged another five years in the last day, saw the raised welts and the bruises. He tried to apologize, to say he was sorry for not trusting him, sorry for the new tremor in his hand, sorry for the shuffling limp that would become characteristic. The physician could not be rude, because it was his king, but he did not forgive him. He couldn’t. The king had, time after time, told him to violate the laws and use his magic for the king’s gain, and then at the first chance available, the king punished him for it, allowing him to be tortured. He blamed the king more than the Witchfinder and he did not forgive him.”

Arthur was silent, waiting for more. He didn’t want it to end here. He wanted the king to redeem himself, to earn the physician’s forgiveness. But of course, he knew the king, and he knew the story, and he knew that didn’t happen. He knew the physician still did not forgive the king, because why would he? And now the king had taken the physician’s “son” and thrown him in jail for the same reason he had the physician tortured.

Merlin could see the shame and the sadness and the horror wash over Arthur, and he waited until Arthur felt it, really felt it. Then, he spoke.

“The End.”

“Merlin...Merlin, I’m so sorry,” Arthur said. “I’m truly sorry.”

“I know, Arthur. I know you are,” Merlin said. 

Arthur couldn’t help but notice that Merlin hadn’t said “I forgive you,” had never said those words. Arthur wanted so badly to earn his forgiveness. Unfortunately, he didn’t have much time. 

Merlin was dying. 

There was no way around it. Three weeks in a freezing cell living off of scraps would do that to a man. He had been running a fever for at least a day, maybe more, and a thick, burning mucus had migrated into his lungs. He knew he needed to cough it out, but one of his ribs was broken and stubbornly refusing to heal, so coughing felt completely out of the question. 

Merlin didn’t know what to do about it, this dying business. Maybe there was nothing to do. Morgana had snuck down a poultice from Gaius and a book on medicine and she’d tried to walk him through setting his own broken nose, which had kind of worked, but it would always have a little crook in it. Arthur had stretched through the bars of the cell to gently tap it, telling Merlin grumpily that it made him look rugged, like a warrior. They could both see that Merlin wasn’t well, but couldn’t see the extent of it, and every time they asked, he smiled and said “Better than yesterday,” which was not the truth. 

He wasn’t sure exactly why he didn’t ask for help. Part of it was that he knew it would force another Uther confrontation. Morgana and Arthur would beg him to send down Gaius, and Uther would refuse. Camelot didn’t waste resources on sorcerers, especially sorcerers it should have killed. Another part, a smaller but more insidious part, was that Merlin wasn’t sure he wanted to survive. A life in captivity was really no life at all. He thought Arthur would free him when he took the throne, but how long would that be? Three weeks had been miserable, a year would be torture. Who would Merlin even be after a year alone in a cell? He didn’t think he would recognize himself.

And so, in a way that felt almost noble, he had decided to waste away. 

Merlin knew that the story of the Witchfinder was his last. He wanted to leave Arthur with the question of redemption and forgiveness, the comparison of action versus words. Merlin knew Arthur would be a great king one day, the best king the world had ever seen, and he wanted Arthur to remember him, learn from him. This was his last lesson: once kings cause harm, there is no easy route to forgiveness. There is only a long journey of action, doing the right thing even though it’s difficult, and rebuilding trust. 

They both sat silently, as close as Merlin’s chains would allow. Merlin took one last look at Arthur, wanting to inhale him in and die with him on his breath. 

“Endings are a funny thing, aren’t they?” Merlin mused, noticing Arthur wasn’t moving to leave like he typically did after the stories finished. “They might finish one story, but they always begin another.”

“Merlin,” Arthur said quietly. “I don’t want a new beginning. I don’t want the end...I want you.”

“I want you, too.”

Merlin’s voice was soft. Too soft. 

He was fading.

Arthur saw this and as he looked into the heavy blue eyes Merlin was struggling to keep open, they flashed gold, and he suddenly could see the future. He saw himself burying Merlin, holding himself as straight as possible to hide part of him which had been hollowed out. He saw himself being crowned King, and glancing to the empty space behind him, looking for Merlin. He saw himself marrying Gwen and wishing it was Merlin. He saw himself dying, stabbed in the stomach, and bleeding out on the battlefield with no one to hold him as he went. He saw this all and he did not want it. He did not want to be that Arthur. 

Some might say that the sun doesn’t need the moon. It is clear that without the light of the sun, the moon would just be a rock. It wouldn’t hold the same luminous glow. No one would write poems about the moon without the sun. Arthur knew though that without the moon, everyone would hate the tyrannical scorching heat of the sun’s rays. The sun is a hard master without the moon. Radiance can easily become cruelty if not tempered by coolness. The sun and the moon are two sides of the same coin, worthless without each other.

Arthur would not be a sun without a moon. He would not lose his Merlin. And so the sun stole the keys to the cell, scooped the waning moon into his arms and carried him away, bringing him to the physician of story. He would tear open the wound and right the wrongs of the past.


	7. Bind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The first chapter of Part Two: The Rising Sun. 
> 
> The bells are tolling and the guards are coming. What are our heroes to do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for your patience! I had to take some time this week to work on my thesis for school, which is why it took a little longer. I'm starting classes again next week so it may take a bit more time in between chapters, apologies in advance! 
> 
> Minor threats of violence and illness in this chapter, very mild sexual content.

The dawn broke and a storm was brewing, but the rising sun held the moon in his arms, and that was all that mattered.

______

From the moment Arthur had grabbed him from the cold ground, cradling him in his strong arms and carrying him off into the night, Merlin had faded in and out of consciousness. In his fevered state, the line between dream and reality became increasingly blurred, leaving only snippets of fact that could have been fiction.

There was Arthur, laying him down on a cot as Gaius frantically ground some kind of herb. Did Arthur stroke his hair and hold his head back as Gaius poured potion down his throat, or had that been imagination?

He remembered the shivers, the intense cold that convinced him he was six again, surviving the worst Ealdor winter in recorded history. Then, a memory that must have been a dream...Gauis’ voice, “It’s the only way to fight the fever, we need to warm him up,” and Arthur’s fingers, surprisingly limber, unlacing his breeches and tugging them down, Arthur’s eyes lingering on the protruding edges of his hipbones, and then someone wrapping him the warmest, softest furs, taking special care to tuck him in...It must have been his imaginings. 

But Merlin stirred briefly, caressed awake by the first soft light of the morning sun, and he could have sworn he had no pants on and that his head was buried not in a pillow but in someone’s firm, broad chest. Before he could think more on what that meant, he was out again, his body struggling to shake out the fever in his lungs and fight off the infection Gaius had discovered in his ribs. 

When Merlin next struggled to the surface of consciousness, he saw Morgana, a self-assured tidal wave of blue skirts and righteous passion, rushing into the physician’s chambers, followed quickly by both Arthur and Gwen. He struggled to bat his eyes open, to show them he was awake, but his eyelids weighed a thousand pounds, so he could only lay there, unmoving, listening to them speak in voices that sounded underwater.

“What are we going to do? If Father finds him here, he’ll be killed...Maybe Gaius too,” Arthur hissed, and Merlin couldn’t help but find the whole situation hilarious. For all his heroics, Arthur had rescued him without a plan.

Gwen’s voice, steady and soft. “We could take him to the Druids. He’d be safe there, they’d help him recover.”

“And what if Uther thinks they broke him out of jail? No. I won’t take the risk of him killing innocents,” Morgana said. She couldn’t shake the image of the Knights of Camelot, bearing down mercilessly on the Druids who’d only wanted to help her. She glanced over at Merlin’s unconscious form, beads of sweat still coating his forehead, and she was reminded again that it could have been her there instead, if her version of the same secret had been revealed to Arthur. 

“You could kill Uther,” Morgana suggested. As Gwen and Arthur blanched in horror at the idea, she continued. “What? He’s not an innocent! He killed your father for no reason, Gwen. And Arthur, he willingly sacrificed your mother’s life for yours. He’s waged war against magic users for decades. Maybe you’d be doing Camelot a service.”

“I can’t just _kill_ my _father,_ ” Arthur said. “And even if I could, I’d never be king if I committed regicide!”

Merlin was surprised to hear Gwen, the kindest soul he’d ever known, weigh in. “What if you challenged him legitimately? If you named your mother and his crime against her, it would be within your rights as a prince and a knight of Camelot.”

The tides were turning against Arthur. The walls were closing in on him, and it seemed his only choices were to let Merlin die, or murder the man who gave him life, the man who he’d only ever looked up to and sought to please. 

In his cot, Merlin’s limbs were heavy and his tongue was lead, but there was a swelling panic in his chest. He had to stop this. If he allowed Arthur to murder Uther in Merlin’s name, it would ruin everything. Arthur would never forgive him. Arthur would never forgive himself. And what kind of king is one who wallows? He fought the exhaustion, the sickness, the pressure in his head and his lungs, and he struggled to sit, clutching the furs tightly around his waist as he realized that he was, without a doubt, bare from the neck down, and that Arthur had probably undressed him. 

“Arthur, you can’t,” Merlin said, his tongue slurring the words slightly. It took only a heartbeat for his friends, no - his family - to realize he was awake and rush to his side. Gwen was the first to notice his embarrassment at his state of undress, and she grabbed his familiar red shirt from the bench Arthur had tossed it on in the night, gingerly helping him dress as Arthur spoke.

“I have to, Merlin. If I don’t, you’ll die. Maybe Gaius and Gwen, too. For helping. I’d never forgive myself if that happened.”

“You’d never forgive yourself...if you killed him,” Merlin said, still choking on his words. He wouldn’t let dark clouds settle permanently in front of his sun, turning bright light gray and gloomy. 

“I saw the future in your eyes last night, Merlin,” Arthur said solemnly. “I have seen my future, and it’s nothing without you. Nothing. We’re miserable, all of us. I can’t let that happen…”

His voice trailed off. He couldn’t bring himself to declare the inevitable, to promise the death of the man who raised him. But there was a faint sound building, that rolling thunder of Camelot’s bells that could only mean one thing. The guards were coming, his father was coming, and a decision had to be made.

“We’ll slip out, I’ll hide him in my house and buy us more time,” sweet Gwen suggested but Morgana sharply shook her head.

“I’ll not see you in harm’s way. Maybe you should even leave now, while you still can.”

But of course, Gwen would not abandon them. She’d rather die alongside her friends than scurry away only to find herself utterly alone in the world at the end of the day.

“I could challenge him,” Morgana said. “It wouldn’t be any skin off my nose to kill him myself.”

For a second, this idea seemed to be their salvation, but Arthur realized it couldn’t be. “You don’t have a legitimate claim to grievance. You’d kill him, and then I’d be expected to kill you.”

The bells grew louder, underscoring the frantic, spiralling desperation. Even in his addled state, Merlin thought he could hear the pounding of guards’ feet on stone, closer and closer.

And then Gaius, who the foursome had forgotten was even in the room, spoke. 

“There is a spell in the Old Religion. A binding ritual. With your consent, Arthur, it would make it impossible for anyone to harm Merlin without harming you as well. I doubt Uther would be willing to risk the life of the crown prince to execute a sorcerer.”

Arthur didn’t even need to think. “I’ll do it. Whatever it takes, I’ll do it.”

Merlin wanted to scream his dissent, to say he would never let Arthur bleed for him or die for him, but he was already starting to slip, fall, drift into that familiar state of waking unconscious and the world became another series of blips.

Gaius’ hands, one on his bare chest, one on Arthur’s. He was saying something Merlin didn’t understand, a prayer that sounded almost like a marriage ceremony and Arthur was saying the words, “I do.” 

And then Gaius was prompting him, and Merlin was responding in kind, pushing the words “I do,” past his thick tongue, because what else was there to do now? 

The physician’s eyes burned gold and he growled an incantation, the words Merlin barely made out as “ _ndryhten wislic wægn elra.”_

A hush fell over the room as something sacred, something older than Camelot itself joined them. Then, a searing, burning, electric, indescribably beautiful touch on Merlin’s chest, tying strings around his heart. Merlin had never heard Arthur sing before, but he was making an almost inhuman noise of pure joy that Merlin could’ve sworn was song. Just as quickly as it had appeared, the spirit was gone.

There would be no peace, no chance to assess the ways in which the world had shifted. 

Gaius collapsed to the floor, drained from the working of difficult magic and the door to his chambers splintered open as Uther’s guards, led by the king himself.

“There he is,” Uther said, pointing at the limp body of the sorcerer he should have condemned to die. “Kill him.” 

Arthur, Gwen, and Morgana moved as one, stepping in front of their friend. 

“You will do no such thing.” Arthur was radiant, king-like and commanding. The guards edging towards Merlin paused long enough for him to snatch a small knife from the wooden potion-mixing table.

“Arthur, don’t be stupid. You can’t defend him with that. Just say your goodbyes and let me do what I should have done to begin with,” Uther commanded, condescension dripping from his tongue. 

But Arthur wasn’t trying to defend Merlin. He was trying to hurt him. 

He snatched Merlin’s forearm, held it in the air for all to see and drew the knife down the backside of it, drawing a thin cut. Then, he dropped the knife and drew back his own sleeve, letting his father watch in shock and horror as a cut slowly opened, blood oozing out and dropping onto his boots.

“He bleeds, I bleed. Kill him and I die too,” Arthur said. “Is that what you want, Father?”

It wasn’t. 

“You took my mother out of this world to bring me into it. You’ve traded lives before and you spent my entire life punishing people like Merlin for your mistake. If you want to do it again, I won’t stop you.”

Someday, Arthur would kneel before the court of Camelot. The crown would be placed overtop his blonde locks, and he would rise, the king of Camelot, the new dawn. He knelt now, pulling open his shirt and bearing his breast to his father, and he was so regal in his gesture that Morgana could have sworn this was the Arthur of the future, the King Arthur. He didn’t even flinch when his own father drew his sword, pressing the tip of his blade into the skin above his son’s heart.

Uther stood frozen there until his arms began to shake from the weight of his own sword and the weight of the awful thing he had almost done. Then, he too, collapsed to the ground, his crown sliding from his head, hitting the ground with a resounding clang and bouncing to a stop at Arthur’s feet. 

No one heard the sleeping sorcerer whisper a word under his breath. No one noticed his eyes shining gold beneath his eyelids. But every soldier, servant, sorceress, and prince in the room would swear to their dying days that they had seen the rays of the sun form a crown around the young prince’s brow and that Camelot would never glow as brightly as it did when he rose to his feet. The rising son of Uther Pendragon, the rising sun of Camelot.


	8. Blush

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sick, or lovesick? True feelings are revealed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some minor sexual content but generally just very fluffy!

An uneasy calm had settled over Camelot, an overcast sky of peace. Soon, that calm would break, hurling our heroes back into a world of duty and destiny. Soon, but not yet.

___

There was a hand in his and Merlin didn’t want to spook it. 

The hand was connected to the wrist of a sleeping Arthur Pendragon, who could be found with increased reliability at Merlin’s bedside. He had princely duties to fulfill, and some kingly ones as well, since Uther had made himself something of a ghost around the castle, but in every waking moment (and some snoring ones), Arthur waited on his healing servant. 

Arthur asleep was a work of art. Asleep, he was still, and Merlin could gaze at him endlessly, unafraid of judgement. If someone had asked Merlin if he thought Arthur was attractive, he would’ve laughed and said, “Only if you like arrogant prats.” But though he would never say it outloud, he truly thought Arthur had the kind of face that would inspire bards to sing and poets to write sonnets. The curves and the edges of it, the softness of his eyes and the hardness of his brow and the glowing shaggy halo of blonde hair floating above it all...Well. Merlin couldn’t deny its beauty. He was just scared to be caught loving it. 

Arthur had made it clear that he forgave and accepted Merlin’s magic, embraced it even. But Merlin was all too aware that while one of his secrets was out in the open, the other wasn’t. 

For all the time he and Arthur had spent chatting late into the night, he’d never told Arthur that he loved him, never told him that he didn’t care for him as a friend, he  _ burned  _ for him. Now, looking down at the hand cradled in his, he could almost convince himself that Arthur felt the same way about him, but what if he didn’t? Maybe the long talks were fueled only by friendship, the care-taking by guilt, and the cuddles simply by Arthur’s unconscious seeking touch. Merlin had told him he  _ wanted  _ him, but that wasn’t the same thing and Arthur had never mentioned it again. But whatever the truth was, Merlin couldn’t bear to be rejected by his prince again, and so he’d resolved to simply do nothing, and silently cherish every crumb of affection Arthur gave, even if they were accidental.

As Arthur continued to doze, head falling in slow motion towards his servant’s shoulder, Merlin delicately stroked Arthur’s hand with his own thumb, drawing invisible little triskelions on skin. He had been bed-ridden for a week, and undisturbed by the guards or the cold, he was healing quickly. The fever was gone completely and he could almost laugh without pain in his ribs. He’d gone for a few walks, sneaking out with Gwen or Morgana or sometimes both for a jaunt around the castle, but Arthur always caught him and dragged him back to bed, claiming he wasn’t well enough yet and that if he caught fever again and died, it would be completely his fault when Arthur did too. 

He heard Arthur start to stir, making those same snuffling sounds Merlin had found so hilarious each time he’d woke Arthur. He quickly withdrew his hand from Arthur’s, knowing that if Arthur saw it and was embarrassed, it would break his heart. Once burned, twice shy, and Merlin wouldn’t be burnt by his prince again. 

“Merlin?” Arthur mumbled, rubbing the cobwebs out of his eyes. “How long was I asleep?”

“Um...I’m not sure. I was asleep too.”

“Oh,” 

And instead of disentangling himself from Merlin, Arthur looked him up and down lazily, aware of every part of them that overlapped. His fingers, just barely draped over Merlin’s wrist, his head tucked neatly into the crook of Merlin’s shoulder. When his eyes made their way up to Merlin’s cheeks, he found them rozy. 

“Feverish again, Merlin?”

“No, I’m not, really! I’m fine,” Merlin stuttered. He wasn’t “fine” but he wasn’t feverish either. He was something else…

“Are you sure? Let me check,” Arthur said, dragging his hand up to Merlin’s cheek. He felt his servant’s muscles stiffen under his touch, and he wondered at it. Was Merlin scared of him, still? Did Arthur’s touch remind him of the cold cell, the hard iron, the sleepless nights? He brought his eyes up to meet Merlin’s, and found them staring straight at him, but look as deep as he might, he couldn’t read whatever was lying within them. He let his hand drop. “You’re right. You don’t have a fever.”

For all the time they had spent together, Merlin was a mystery. Outside of the framework of their usual camaraderie, the established rules and conventions, he’d become an enigma. Arthur wanted so badly to kiss him, to knot his fingers in the downy hair at the back of Merlin’s head and yank him in and never let go. But Merlin was sick and Merlin was his servant and Merlin was scared, or at least, that was the explanation for his trembling that made the most sense to Arthur, so instead of doing what he wanted more than anything else in that moment, he pulled away and stood.

“Father sent me word last night that a delegation is scheduled to come into Camelot in three days time,” Arthur said, letting a cold formality settle into his tone to mask the hurt and uncertainty he was feeling. That was the only way his father communicated with him now, wax-sealed letters delivered to his chambers by George in the morning, detailing in distant, courtly language Arthur’s duties for the week. Merlin still had said nothing, and in Arthur’s estimation, looked nervous, so Arthur continued. “Rulers from the five kingdoms seeking a peace treaty. Father says he will meet with them, but I need to make sure everything is ready.”

That was his built-in cue to leave, but Arthur couldn’t bring himself to, his feet glued to the floor of Merlin’s room. Then, Merlin was standing, too. Though he’d started to regain some of the weight he’d lost, when he moved, Arthur found him birdlike - fragile and fleeting. 

“Arthur…” Merlin said, taking a small step towards him, and then Arthur couldn’t help himself anymore.

He closed the distance between them in one stride and slid his hand up Merlin’s jaw until his fingertips rested firmly against Merlin’s hair.

“Merlin,” Arthur whispered, barely able to hold himself back. “Merlin, do you want this? Do you want me?”

Merlin didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He was already moving, his own hands meeting with Arthur’s cheekbones as they crashed together in a beautiful collision of heat and fire and desire and...and...

Love, maybe.

They were kissing, lips trying to make up for lost time, hands trying to create a detailed map of one another, of every muscle, every mole, every scar. His heart was melting under the heat of the sun and he broke away from their kiss in a peal of laughter. It was beautiful, pure laughter, unadulterated happiness but Arthur looked bewildered.

“What? Am I a bad kisser?” he asked, caring altogether too much that Merlin thought he was not, in fact, a bad kisser.

“No! No. Of course not,” Merlin said, finally getting his giggles under control. “It’s just that…”

“What?! Spit it out,  _ Mer _ lin,” Arthur shouted, feigning outrage with his hands on his hips.

“Okay, okay! It’s just that….your whiskers were tickling me,” Merlin said, giggling again.

He didn’t stop laughing even as Arthur tackled him onto his own bed, scratching his two- day shadow up Merlin’s face. He grabbed Merlin’s wrists, wrapping his hands tightly around them and pinning him to the bed as he leaned in to whisper in Merlin’s ear.

“If you don’t stop laughing, I’ll make you stop.”

Merlin stopped laughing immediately, his eyelashes fluttering and his breath catching in his throat. He could feel every part of Arthur as his prince straddled him on the bed, tangling themselves on Merlin’s sheets, uniting the sun and the moon in heavenly union.


End file.
